What will be missed.
Who: Miniyal and Roa
Where: North weyr
When: Morning on day 22, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Miniyal visits Roa to express her condolences over the loss of G'thon. Yes, she does. Because clearly everyone else is suffering more than she. They talk of the old man fondly.
5/21/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is morning on day 22, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
It's an hour after sunrise and the weyrwoman is already up. Presumably, the Captain of the Guard is up as well, since he is absent. Food is laid out on a tray. Hard-boiled eggs, pastries, toast, sausages. There are a few empty spots where edibles have already been eaten, and there are also pitchers of klah, juice, tea, and water respectively. Roa paces around the room reading through a hide held in one hand, the other pressing against the small of her spine. On her couch, Tialith is alert and watchful, her gaze remaining on her rider and shifting as the little woman paces.
Never one to sleep it should come as no surprise that at least one weyrling has been up and about for some time now. That last night was a particularly bad night. Not that it can be told really from a knock on the door. Behind the door, Miniyal stands still, hands in her pockets once she is done knocking. And, she waits, as she has done so many times in the past.
Tialith, usually silent when guests come calling, rumbles softly as the knocks sound out in the weyr. Roa looks towards the gold and then over to the door, dropping her hide on the couch as she heads towards it, turns the knob, and pulls it open. She offers Miniyal a tiny smile whispered against the corner of her mouth. "Hey," the weyrwoman offers quietly. She steps back to allow Miniyal entrance adding, to further clarify the gesture, Ccome in."
There is no smile, however tiny, in return. Instead, there is just a small nod of her head as Miniyal steps inside. Her hands remain in her pockets which makes it ever so easy for shorn hair to fall forward over her eyes. Blinking behind that hair there is only a small sigh as she comes to a stop and pulls out a hand to swipe at her hair. "I am sorry. I should have come by yesterday." Any sincerity of apology will have to be taken on trust since her voice is finely neutral.
"It doesn't matter," Roa says with a small shake of her head. She nudges the door shut again as Tialith shifts her attention from her rider to her rider's guest. "Would you like to sit, or would you rather stand or..." she shrugs. Helpless.
"I am still sorry. I lost track of time trying to sort out- things." Miniyal shakes her head and pulls her hands from her pockets to fold them in front of her. "I just wanted to come by and say I am sorry. For your loss." Shifting her focus from the weyrwoman to the furniture she shakes her head again. "I don't want to interrupt. Or take up too much time. And I have lessons."
"Thank you," the weyrwoman says with a small nod, "I am sorry for yours as well and I, truthfully, I wouldn't mind the company. If, I mean, if it wouldn't pull you away from anything too pressing. Nobody really..." Roa bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. "It's difficult. To find somebody who understands."
One hand lifts to once more tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It promptly falls forward again, being barely long enough to be tucked back in the first place. "I could stay a short while." Miniyal hesitates between this gracious offer and her next words to sigh. "Should you sit? We can sit. It's. . .not easy, no. It should not have- It was my fault."
"Please, sit if you like. I find standing up feels better these days." Roa lifts a hand and gestures towards the couch in invitation. "I'm sorry, I don't think I follow. What was your fault?"
"I am fine standing, thank you. I have had plenty of time to sit." Miniyal keeps her hands folded in front of her, every now and again twisting the ring on her finger. "That he died. I should never have left. . .He did not take care of himself and I tried when we were together to at least help and then, well, then this. Because I wasn't around. I may as well have killed him. He needed me and I let him down. I failed him."
There is silence for that, and the weyrwoman shifts, crossing her arms over her chest and tipping her head to the side. "If you're going to blame yourself, then you might as well blame Hirth for dying. Or Peloth for impressing. Or Tialith for clutching the egg. He would want you to remember him, Miniyal, but not as a stain on your conscience. That's unfair to the both of you."
Around and around the ring goes on her finger as Miniyal stands there. "It's just- I should have been there. That's all. I should have thought things through more. I messed up and because of it he died." Logic, phah. "If you want to talk about unfair. . .it's unfair he's dead. It's unfair. . I never even got to say goodbye."
"Yes," Roa agrees quietly, "it is. It's unfair that none of us got to say goodbye. But it wasn't your fault, Miniyal. You can't blame yourself. Gans was a a grown man." Quite a bit more than just grown, really. "He understood how to take care of himself, and if he chose to do things that made him happier instead, he understood the choices he made. I wish it hadn't...I wish he was still here. But it's not your fault that he isn't."
"But I knew. I knew he wouldn't and that's what people do. I mean, you're supposed to take care of each other and I failed him. And now. . ." Shaking her head, Miniyal lets a little earnestness seep into her words. Even if she still sounds for the most part neutral and falsely calm over the whole thing. "It is my fault. I can't even. He wasn't supposed to die. He said- He said he would not- He was supposed to stay until I would not- Until I wouldn't be so lost without him."
"Sometimes," Roa swallows and studies her knuckles, "people break the promises they make. They don't mean to, but it happens. I'm..." she shakes her head. "You're not alone, though."
"It's not the same thing. I mean. . .I know. But we didn't even get any time." Miniyal blinks several times like she's thinking of possibly crying. But, she doesn't. "I'm sorry. I am fine. It's not anything."
"Or course it's something," Roa says with a shake of her head. "It can't be nothing. That's impossible. Do you want some water or juice?"
Miniyal's head shakes at the offer or at what was said or some other reason entirely. But she does shake her head. "I'm fine, thank you. I'm not thirsty. It's not something unless I let it be something."
"It's something because you love him and he died," Roa says simply and perhaps a little too bluntly. "If you don't let it be something, it will become something else. something worse. But it won't go away."
"I do not have to let it be anything at all if I do not wish it to be." Miniyal enjoys her denial. So much that she doesn't even try to sound convincing. She just talks like she's reciting something from some old book she read once. "It is not something that can be changed so there is no reason to even dwell on it. It is done. It is over with."
"Miniyal..." As the weyrling is not trying to be convincing, Roa remains unconvinced. "Our heads don't work that way. You can't just tell yourself, 'sorry, all done, I don't love him anymore or miss him'. You have let yourself feel it."
"I got most everything taken care of yesterday." Moving right along, it seems. Miniyal brushes off feelings and thoughts by ignoring them. "There are some things I think he might like to see go to others. And I still have to go through his papers once more and be sure I have all of his class notes to send to the headmaster so he can give them to the new ethics instructor just in case. I think he would like you to have his teas. I don't even like the stuff. I shall have them sent this evening when I have free time."
The weyrwoman tightens her arms where they cross over her chest, but she only nods. The topic is, for now, left alone. "All right. Thank you. How is Peloth taking it?"
Denial. Works every time. Or something like that. The question is considered in silence for several moments. When Miniyal finally speaks again it starts with a shrug. "She says she is fine. I do not think she is upset. She is just worried I will do something stupid which is ridiculous." Because she is certainly not known for doing stupid things.
"Listen to her," Roa says solemnly. "She knows you better than you know yourself, right now. And I'm going to have Tia ask her to alert us if she gets overly concerned. But, you know, since you're fine, I'm sure it won't be a problem."
"We're fine. And we don't need a sitter, thank you, ma'am." It's the sort of statement that might even have been more convincing coming from her if she had tried to convince. If she had not used the same disassociated sort of calm voice that is what she's used since arriving. Her fingers stop twisting at the ring she wears rather suddenly and Miniyal shoves her hands into her pockets.
"Tough beans," Roa says with a little shrug. "Have you eaten, since you heard?"
"Corin brought me dinner last night." Miniyal can't quite figure out how to answer a direct question so she will just go around it as best she can. "I am not going to starve myself." No more than normal at least.
"Did you eat the dinner that Corin brought you?" is the next question, then. Roa shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Will you have something, please? An egg maybe or some toast?"
Head tilting to one side Miniyal considers the first question and then nods. "I ate." There, that works. Clearly she ate something. Likely just so she could answer such a question. "I am not hungry right now, thank you. I am fine."
"Mmm..." Roa says with a small shake of her head. She looks down at her feet...or where her feet used to be before the bump got in the way. "I think, most of all, I'm going to miss the little things about him," she says quietly. "How precise he was about his shelling tea. The way his whole expression was in his eyebrows His taste in terrible books."
"I don't want to miss anything. I wish I could just- I don't know." Seeing one's feet is overrated. Miniyal knows they exist and therefore has never missed seeing them. But, she does look down at the ground. "We would talk. He would listen to my stupid ideas and not, you know. He never once said. . . He always believed in me. I'll never have that again." A pause and another shake of her head. "Sometimes she doesn't count."
Roa opens her mouth, but when Miniyal says '...she doesn't count', her lips come together again. "Sometimes they don't," is her quiet agreement instead. "I miss the way he could push your ideas back at you. Make you work to prove your point and, at the same time, make you feel like your point was worth proving."
Inside her pockets Miniyal's hands curl in on themselves. "He never tried to make me be anything. I know that's not what people think and all, but it's true. He just- He always picked me up. I would fall and he would just brush me off and help me try again. He thought I was important. Not many people ever did."
"He had a really subtle sense of humor. And he'd smile so rarely that if you could make...it was like his eyes would brighten and he'd wake up from sleeping. It was suck a wonderful feeling, to know you had done that, nevermind actually manage to get one of -his- jokes." Roa ducks her ehad down, stealing a glance upward and over at the other woman.
"I think his joke was just that. I mean, that he would say things and no one would really get what he said on the hundred different levels he would use. There just aren't, you know, people like that. That make me have to think all the time. It's so easy to know what's going on and I never really always did with him. But I knew he loved me." Miniyal keeps her head down, feet shuffling, voice calm. "He really cared for you. He was so proud of you."
"He and I..." Roa sniffs, just once, sharply, "I knew him before I knew him, if that makes any sense. I mean, a long time ago. He...I don't know. He made things better for a moment, when I didn't think that was really possible. I was scared he'd remember me when I came to Caucus. That I'd be a disappointment to him. He was very proud of you too, you know. You and Peloth, and long before that as well."
"I don't want to let him down. I know it's not- it doesn't matter. I just, he always. . ." Miniyal shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. I can't think about it right now. I know you might not understand, Roa, but I just can't think about it. It was all I could do last night not to-" Frowning, which is at least an expression, she shakes her head once more. "If I think about it I won't make it. Not right now. I just need time."
"I understand," the weyrwoman offers very quietly. "But you're going to have to at some point. Take time. Do whatever you need. Just...you'll have to come back to it when you're ready."
"Someday." Agreement, if not the sort that indicates that time will come, well, any time soon. Still, Miniyal can offer at least that little crumb of assurance. "It shouldn't be so hard. We were together for so short a time. It shouldn't be so hard. It doesn't make sense. I just have to figure it out."
"Time's not...it isn't about how long you were with him. It's about who he was to you. That sort of thing," Roa's smile is almost rueful, "takes no time at all. Make sure you eat, okay? And Tialith's keeping an eye on Peloth. And, well, we're here. If you need anything."
"Well, it should make more sense. That's all I am saying." There is never a time when she cannot find something that is wrong and needs commenting on. Pulling her hands from her pockets she looks down at them and then glances up to nod once to Roa. "I should go. We're fine." Miniyal takes a couple of steps backwards for the door. "I'm just have to- to go. For now. Good bye." Backwards for the door until she can find it and then she goes, as always, leaving something unsaid.
There's not much Roa can think to do, save watch her most junior weyrwoman make her escape. She waits until the door is closed before she murmurs, very softly, " 'bye."
Where: North weyr
When: Morning on day 22, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Miniyal visits Roa to express her condolences over the loss of G'thon. Yes, she does. Because clearly everyone else is suffering more than she. They talk of the old man fondly.
5/21/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is morning on day 22, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
It's an hour after sunrise and the weyrwoman is already up. Presumably, the Captain of the Guard is up as well, since he is absent. Food is laid out on a tray. Hard-boiled eggs, pastries, toast, sausages. There are a few empty spots where edibles have already been eaten, and there are also pitchers of klah, juice, tea, and water respectively. Roa paces around the room reading through a hide held in one hand, the other pressing against the small of her spine. On her couch, Tialith is alert and watchful, her gaze remaining on her rider and shifting as the little woman paces.
Never one to sleep it should come as no surprise that at least one weyrling has been up and about for some time now. That last night was a particularly bad night. Not that it can be told really from a knock on the door. Behind the door, Miniyal stands still, hands in her pockets once she is done knocking. And, she waits, as she has done so many times in the past.
Tialith, usually silent when guests come calling, rumbles softly as the knocks sound out in the weyr. Roa looks towards the gold and then over to the door, dropping her hide on the couch as she heads towards it, turns the knob, and pulls it open. She offers Miniyal a tiny smile whispered against the corner of her mouth. "Hey," the weyrwoman offers quietly. She steps back to allow Miniyal entrance adding, to further clarify the gesture, Ccome in."
There is no smile, however tiny, in return. Instead, there is just a small nod of her head as Miniyal steps inside. Her hands remain in her pockets which makes it ever so easy for shorn hair to fall forward over her eyes. Blinking behind that hair there is only a small sigh as she comes to a stop and pulls out a hand to swipe at her hair. "I am sorry. I should have come by yesterday." Any sincerity of apology will have to be taken on trust since her voice is finely neutral.
"It doesn't matter," Roa says with a small shake of her head. She nudges the door shut again as Tialith shifts her attention from her rider to her rider's guest. "Would you like to sit, or would you rather stand or..." she shrugs. Helpless.
"I am still sorry. I lost track of time trying to sort out- things." Miniyal shakes her head and pulls her hands from her pockets to fold them in front of her. "I just wanted to come by and say I am sorry. For your loss." Shifting her focus from the weyrwoman to the furniture she shakes her head again. "I don't want to interrupt. Or take up too much time. And I have lessons."
"Thank you," the weyrwoman says with a small nod, "I am sorry for yours as well and I, truthfully, I wouldn't mind the company. If, I mean, if it wouldn't pull you away from anything too pressing. Nobody really..." Roa bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. "It's difficult. To find somebody who understands."
One hand lifts to once more tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It promptly falls forward again, being barely long enough to be tucked back in the first place. "I could stay a short while." Miniyal hesitates between this gracious offer and her next words to sigh. "Should you sit? We can sit. It's. . .not easy, no. It should not have- It was my fault."
"Please, sit if you like. I find standing up feels better these days." Roa lifts a hand and gestures towards the couch in invitation. "I'm sorry, I don't think I follow. What was your fault?"
"I am fine standing, thank you. I have had plenty of time to sit." Miniyal keeps her hands folded in front of her, every now and again twisting the ring on her finger. "That he died. I should never have left. . .He did not take care of himself and I tried when we were together to at least help and then, well, then this. Because I wasn't around. I may as well have killed him. He needed me and I let him down. I failed him."
There is silence for that, and the weyrwoman shifts, crossing her arms over her chest and tipping her head to the side. "If you're going to blame yourself, then you might as well blame Hirth for dying. Or Peloth for impressing. Or Tialith for clutching the egg. He would want you to remember him, Miniyal, but not as a stain on your conscience. That's unfair to the both of you."
Around and around the ring goes on her finger as Miniyal stands there. "It's just- I should have been there. That's all. I should have thought things through more. I messed up and because of it he died." Logic, phah. "If you want to talk about unfair. . .it's unfair he's dead. It's unfair. . I never even got to say goodbye."
"Yes," Roa agrees quietly, "it is. It's unfair that none of us got to say goodbye. But it wasn't your fault, Miniyal. You can't blame yourself. Gans was a a grown man." Quite a bit more than just grown, really. "He understood how to take care of himself, and if he chose to do things that made him happier instead, he understood the choices he made. I wish it hadn't...I wish he was still here. But it's not your fault that he isn't."
"But I knew. I knew he wouldn't and that's what people do. I mean, you're supposed to take care of each other and I failed him. And now. . ." Shaking her head, Miniyal lets a little earnestness seep into her words. Even if she still sounds for the most part neutral and falsely calm over the whole thing. "It is my fault. I can't even. He wasn't supposed to die. He said- He said he would not- He was supposed to stay until I would not- Until I wouldn't be so lost without him."
"Sometimes," Roa swallows and studies her knuckles, "people break the promises they make. They don't mean to, but it happens. I'm..." she shakes her head. "You're not alone, though."
"It's not the same thing. I mean. . .I know. But we didn't even get any time." Miniyal blinks several times like she's thinking of possibly crying. But, she doesn't. "I'm sorry. I am fine. It's not anything."
"Or course it's something," Roa says with a shake of her head. "It can't be nothing. That's impossible. Do you want some water or juice?"
Miniyal's head shakes at the offer or at what was said or some other reason entirely. But she does shake her head. "I'm fine, thank you. I'm not thirsty. It's not something unless I let it be something."
"It's something because you love him and he died," Roa says simply and perhaps a little too bluntly. "If you don't let it be something, it will become something else. something worse. But it won't go away."
"I do not have to let it be anything at all if I do not wish it to be." Miniyal enjoys her denial. So much that she doesn't even try to sound convincing. She just talks like she's reciting something from some old book she read once. "It is not something that can be changed so there is no reason to even dwell on it. It is done. It is over with."
"Miniyal..." As the weyrling is not trying to be convincing, Roa remains unconvinced. "Our heads don't work that way. You can't just tell yourself, 'sorry, all done, I don't love him anymore or miss him'. You have let yourself feel it."
"I got most everything taken care of yesterday." Moving right along, it seems. Miniyal brushes off feelings and thoughts by ignoring them. "There are some things I think he might like to see go to others. And I still have to go through his papers once more and be sure I have all of his class notes to send to the headmaster so he can give them to the new ethics instructor just in case. I think he would like you to have his teas. I don't even like the stuff. I shall have them sent this evening when I have free time."
The weyrwoman tightens her arms where they cross over her chest, but she only nods. The topic is, for now, left alone. "All right. Thank you. How is Peloth taking it?"
Denial. Works every time. Or something like that. The question is considered in silence for several moments. When Miniyal finally speaks again it starts with a shrug. "She says she is fine. I do not think she is upset. She is just worried I will do something stupid which is ridiculous." Because she is certainly not known for doing stupid things.
"Listen to her," Roa says solemnly. "She knows you better than you know yourself, right now. And I'm going to have Tia ask her to alert us if she gets overly concerned. But, you know, since you're fine, I'm sure it won't be a problem."
"We're fine. And we don't need a sitter, thank you, ma'am." It's the sort of statement that might even have been more convincing coming from her if she had tried to convince. If she had not used the same disassociated sort of calm voice that is what she's used since arriving. Her fingers stop twisting at the ring she wears rather suddenly and Miniyal shoves her hands into her pockets.
"Tough beans," Roa says with a little shrug. "Have you eaten, since you heard?"
"Corin brought me dinner last night." Miniyal can't quite figure out how to answer a direct question so she will just go around it as best she can. "I am not going to starve myself." No more than normal at least.
"Did you eat the dinner that Corin brought you?" is the next question, then. Roa shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Will you have something, please? An egg maybe or some toast?"
Head tilting to one side Miniyal considers the first question and then nods. "I ate." There, that works. Clearly she ate something. Likely just so she could answer such a question. "I am not hungry right now, thank you. I am fine."
"Mmm..." Roa says with a small shake of her head. She looks down at her feet...or where her feet used to be before the bump got in the way. "I think, most of all, I'm going to miss the little things about him," she says quietly. "How precise he was about his shelling tea. The way his whole expression was in his eyebrows His taste in terrible books."
"I don't want to miss anything. I wish I could just- I don't know." Seeing one's feet is overrated. Miniyal knows they exist and therefore has never missed seeing them. But, she does look down at the ground. "We would talk. He would listen to my stupid ideas and not, you know. He never once said. . . He always believed in me. I'll never have that again." A pause and another shake of her head. "Sometimes she doesn't count."
Roa opens her mouth, but when Miniyal says '...she doesn't count', her lips come together again. "Sometimes they don't," is her quiet agreement instead. "I miss the way he could push your ideas back at you. Make you work to prove your point and, at the same time, make you feel like your point was worth proving."
Inside her pockets Miniyal's hands curl in on themselves. "He never tried to make me be anything. I know that's not what people think and all, but it's true. He just- He always picked me up. I would fall and he would just brush me off and help me try again. He thought I was important. Not many people ever did."
"He had a really subtle sense of humor. And he'd smile so rarely that if you could make...it was like his eyes would brighten and he'd wake up from sleeping. It was suck a wonderful feeling, to know you had done that, nevermind actually manage to get one of -his- jokes." Roa ducks her ehad down, stealing a glance upward and over at the other woman.
"I think his joke was just that. I mean, that he would say things and no one would really get what he said on the hundred different levels he would use. There just aren't, you know, people like that. That make me have to think all the time. It's so easy to know what's going on and I never really always did with him. But I knew he loved me." Miniyal keeps her head down, feet shuffling, voice calm. "He really cared for you. He was so proud of you."
"He and I..." Roa sniffs, just once, sharply, "I knew him before I knew him, if that makes any sense. I mean, a long time ago. He...I don't know. He made things better for a moment, when I didn't think that was really possible. I was scared he'd remember me when I came to Caucus. That I'd be a disappointment to him. He was very proud of you too, you know. You and Peloth, and long before that as well."
"I don't want to let him down. I know it's not- it doesn't matter. I just, he always. . ." Miniyal shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. I can't think about it right now. I know you might not understand, Roa, but I just can't think about it. It was all I could do last night not to-" Frowning, which is at least an expression, she shakes her head once more. "If I think about it I won't make it. Not right now. I just need time."
"I understand," the weyrwoman offers very quietly. "But you're going to have to at some point. Take time. Do whatever you need. Just...you'll have to come back to it when you're ready."
"Someday." Agreement, if not the sort that indicates that time will come, well, any time soon. Still, Miniyal can offer at least that little crumb of assurance. "It shouldn't be so hard. We were together for so short a time. It shouldn't be so hard. It doesn't make sense. I just have to figure it out."
"Time's not...it isn't about how long you were with him. It's about who he was to you. That sort of thing," Roa's smile is almost rueful, "takes no time at all. Make sure you eat, okay? And Tialith's keeping an eye on Peloth. And, well, we're here. If you need anything."
"Well, it should make more sense. That's all I am saying." There is never a time when she cannot find something that is wrong and needs commenting on. Pulling her hands from her pockets she looks down at them and then glances up to nod once to Roa. "I should go. We're fine." Miniyal takes a couple of steps backwards for the door. "I'm just have to- to go. For now. Good bye." Backwards for the door until she can find it and then she goes, as always, leaving something unsaid.
There's not much Roa can think to do, save watch her most junior weyrwoman make her escape. She waits until the door is closed before she murmurs, very softly, " 'bye."